If some 14 year old gets it in their head that they can go from Guatemala to the US, The humanitarian problem does not start when they hit the US border. What’s Stephen Colbert’s witty commentary and quick, out of context splices about all the dangers between Guatamala and the US border? Does he have anything to say? Do any liberals? I’ve yet to see any. The Church does because it’s everywhere from the source countries, all through the route and at the destination here. But the Church doesn’t map well to liberalism or conservatism.

This situation has all the poor planning and bad consequences of the children’s crusade with none of the piety.

If an american parent leaves an 11 year old in the car while they run into the store, that’s arrest worthy activity. But shove them on top of a freight train for 3 days and put them in the hands of organized crime to cross the border and that’s just tastefully passed over by the media.

These people have got a lie into their heads about US law. As a consequence, some will die, some will suffer devastating injuries, some will be raped, some will be taken into bondage, and some will be deported right back to square one all at great human and financial expense. All those things, except the last one, will happen in the no media coverage zone between when they leave their front door and they hit the US border.

Colbert’s outdone Orwell. In 1984 there were only two minute hates. Colbert’s managed 8.

It’s disgusting.

Dave G.

Yeah, thank goodness we should only focus on helping the kids and not make this political or anything.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

I’ve known plenty of people who went through refugee camps. It’s not nice but it was a reasonable system in europe. You were interred in Austria or Italy or wherever you crossed over the iron curtain and then you settled there or applied to move further. If you wanted to get to a “better” country, you waited longer. Everybody pitched in and took some people.

Why are we not trying to establish this system in Mexico? Because we’re all being political. The Mexicans have not really internalized that they’re no longer poor but a middle income country and what a different role they have now.

You could get a bill through the House next week helping Mexico fund refugee camps with broad GOP support. The tea party would likely support it as part of “in depth border defense” and we’d probably have a bit of pickup in legal immigration as a consequence. I honestly don’t know how Democrats would vote or whether Harry Reid would sit on the bill in the Senate.

Neither party, nor the UN, is following the east european refugee model which was a model that worked a lot better than what is going on today.

Dave G.

Interesting. Never thought of that.

Rebecca Fuentes

Is it likely that Mexico would be open to this idea? I’d love to see policy that actually worked to HELP down there instead of arguing about the result of the problems up here.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

I’ve no idea. Somebody should have asked them last year when we spiked from 5k to 30k in unaccompanied minors. That was mostly in Kerry’s tenure so Secretary Kerry shares blame here with President Obama.

Dan C

Humanae Vitae maps well to conservative Catholicism. Populorum Progressio and CST maps better to liberal Catholicism. Pretending the Church maps well to neither political camp is less accurate than to manage the details.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

One message or another given by one pontiff or another may make one political camp happier than the another. Unless somebody started repudiating previous popes when I wasn’t looking it’s all Catholicism. You don’t get to pick and choose because of whose butt is on St. Peter’s throne and what’s the emphasis of today.

In other words, Catholicism doesn’t map because it’s broader than what a political party can manage.

Sometimes a political party’s standard bearer tries to expand their party to map better to Catholicism. Paul Ryan is doing that today with the GOP. Hooray for that, but this phenomenon of party philosophy expansion is not quite the same thing.

Dan C

Yawn. You keep trying to fit your libertarianism into CST. You cannot. You will struggle to find sprrit and quote for this.

C in V, is written in appreciation of PP. HV and PP would be written by the same pope. Laborem Exeecens makes the conservative work overtime to find JP2 as an economic libertarian.

Each pope since RN has rejected classical liberalism and its spin offs.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

Sorry, I’m not going to divert into a discussion of libertarianism. It’s irrelevant to the thread and a distraction from the fact that Mark is cheering on a pretty nasty piece of agitprop. I’d be glad to discuss libertarianism in some relevant forum thread or privately. I’m pretty easy to find on the Internet.

Dan C

Ten years ago, “difficult” messages were delivered by conservative Catholics and Ann Coulter and the like were models of behavior. Dwight Longenecker continues this behavior. The hate was carried on by Blosser and Sobrino and the American Catholic blog continues in that vein today.

Want eight minutes of hate? Read Pope Watch at the American Catholic.

The complaint of critique of conservatives that seems stinging today is largely due to the fact that conservatives are being more roundly critiqued with more sophistication than the days when they dominated the Catholic message on blogdom. Colbert is nothing compared to Longenecker, Joe Carter, or the American catholic.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

I look forward to your explanation of how loving Stephen Colbert’s labeling of El Salvador as El Diablo is. Also how he dismissed the lady who adopted a Guatamalan child (her daughter) as just one more of those conservative haters of central american kids. She needed extra effort so he left her picture up as he called her position a soft kind of hate. At least he wasn’t humming “one of these things is not like the other” like an MSNBC talk panel did to Mitt Romney’s adopted black grandchild.

And that “pretend nobody’s home” crack? That’s what Mexico is doing. He could have turned this into something a bit less of a hatchet job by just remarking that “Mexico’s doing it”. But that would have ruined the narrative which is about hating conservatives, not helping the kids.

Was Colbert fair to the Palm Aire? Or was he trash talking the property because he was being political. You read the reviews. I read it like a nice, mid-range hotel (rated 4th of 8 in the municipality) that has trouble with consistency in service. But two and a half stars is “the worst hotel in the world”.

Colbert also makes fun of the gang issue. It’s not like MS-13 recruits 11 year olds, is it? What, it does?

And the disease issue? Our defenses are built around the idea that we’re going to be admitting limited numbers of people and any outbreaks will be small and rare enough that they can be handled without changing the american way of life. If we don’t get the numbers under control, this is going to change.http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/44047.html

Colbert asserts ebola “has never appeared outside of Africa”. People, I give you reston ebolavirus, named after Reston Virginia, the place where it was first detected and later traced to SE Asia, the Philippines. We dodged a bullet with Reston but it is obvious that only cruel conservatives would raise the issue further. Fair? I don’t think so but you’d have to actually type in “ebola outside africa” into a search engine and read for 10 seconds. If you’re caught up in the 8 minutes hate, you don’t bother. You just nod along and cheer. You might even call the put down “devastating”.

Kwasman made a fool of himself, no doubt. He’s running third of three on the money race in the primary election. There’s no polling I could find but I suspect he’s not going to make it in the primary. Out of all the examples, all the long minutes, this is the one bit that had a kernel of truth to it.

This is a very thin reed to hang all the nonsense off of.

Dave G.

The fact that you had to take so much time to refute a show whose purpose is to keep us thinking like a bunch of kids in a middle school locker room is, itself, proof of the downward spiral in modern discourse. And yes, MSNBC is the pits of them all. FOX, CNN, the Networks, most major publications are clearly biased and agenda driven to be sure. But MSNBC (with help from the Comedy Central duo), is good at keeping the level of conversation at that ‘yet to hit puberty’ level of maturity, where facts are far less important than good zingers with a dose of potty mouth or infantile insults. Red meat for the willing minded, and not much else.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

Sorry to double post but the hate comparison stuff was just so different that it deserved a separate response.

I actually don’t read Longenecker and don’t know who he is. Is that Fr. Dwight Longenecker?

I also don’t read Joe Carter and don’t know who he is. Is he part of the Acton Institute?

But what are you, eight? You seem to think Colbert’s moral universe is legitimately that of an eight year old who feels justified in doing something wrong because others are doing something wrong. Grow up.

jroberts548

The underlying policy problem is complicated, and reasonable people of good will can disagree about what we should do.

Reasonable people of good will don’t, e.g., yell at school buses or engage in insane, baseless fear-mongering about ebola and al-Qaeda.

Reasonable position: “While we should be compassionate to children, amnesty or an overly broad asylum policy will just incentivize more immigrants.”

Insane, mockable position: “EBOLA!!!!!!! YMCA GO HOME!!!!!!”

ETA: This is actually a pretty clear example of how the Tea Party and Fox News, among others, actively impoverish America. As long as half of the immigration debate is dominated by insane racists, we’re less likely to come to a sound solution. We need reasonable, pragmatic people pointing out what you just pointed out. We can’t hear them over the insane racists shouting at random buses. Colbert is doing America a favor. In a better world, the mockery of insane racists would just make more room for pragmatists.

Dave G.

Actually, reasonable people avoid focusing on the extremes of both sides, or attempt to push people they disagree with into extremes of either sides What they do is focus on helping all involved and finding ways to solve the larger problem

But when insane racism is the dominant voice of the conservative media and of those Republican politicians who are talking about immigration, I think it’s both fair and vitally important to call it out. When Fox News starts giving air time to reasonable people of good will, and Colbert mocks them for that, you’ll have a point.

Dave G.

It isn’t. I’ve watched FOX on this (I’ve watched FOX more since CNN decided to jettison half of its reporting team for round the clock 4 stories a day, and found it’s not much worse nowadays than the other outlets) – and you know what? Even O’Reilly has condemned protesters who have spit at or called out racist things. I don’t mean to imply he’s usually a racist. I just know he’s a big name in conservative media. Most blogs and posts I’ve read have as well. And yes, FOX has given time, as has CNN and the networks, and most publications, to a variety of viewpoints (not all of which I agree with I should note).

In honesty, with the exception of prime time MSNBC (and not the morning show I mean), and possibly Hannity (because I just don’t care to watch him, so I don’t know), most have done a good job of covering extremes on both sides (including the even more despicable tendency of exploiting racism and human suffering to ramrod agendas), Democrats and the GOP playing politics, the POV of people living on the borders, and the need for solving the greater problem.. Sometimes I fear turning too often to Comedy central can be hazardous to a comprehensive perspective.

Note: I must admit, however, that this last week I’ve seen more ‘backing into respective corners’ across the media than I did the first weeks this was being covered. Alas.

jroberts548

Fair enough. “Dominant” might be an overstatement.

Antiphon411

Racists dominate Fox News and the Republican party?! Please!

Would that American conservatives did have a healthy dose of race realism, they might actually do something to stop the cultural (and economic) erosion of this once semi-great nation!

If we had some “racist” leaders, perhaps they would understand that USA is a white European nation. They would recognize that America was prosperous because it was a nation of immigrants…from Europe. They would realize that our immigration policies of the past half-century have put America on the road to ruin. They would realize that offshoring American industry to brown countries has harmed the white (and black) working class in America. They would realize that importing more brown workers to take the remaining jobs (not just in the service industry) lowers wages and further erodes the position of all classes of white folks, except the upper class.

Everyone claims they are looking for pragmatists? Ha!

What do we owe to the children invading our country? Hot meals and a clean place to be held until we get them all one-way plane tickets home.

jroberts548

Bold rhetorical move.

petey

“invading” our country

Joe

You are aware that this is a Catholic blog? Shouldn’t you be over at stormfront.org?

I’m not at Stormfront because I am not a Nazi or white supremacist…I wouldn’t even really describe myself as a white nationalist.

Did you know that you can be Catholic and also love your people and wish to preserve your culture? Did you know that Charles Martel and the Catholic Franks wanted to keep the Saracen invaders out of France? What racists! Colbert and Shea do not approve! St. Joan of Arc didn’t even want Englishmen there! De-canonize her!

Now, I know that you and Shea and Pope Francis are not big on preserving European culture and the white folks who created it, but some of us are. Sorry to upset you.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

What is upsetting some of us is your pretty obvious confusion about your subject of interest and the risk that poses to yourself spiritually and others physically. Confused racialists have this history of violence, you see. I don’t know you so cannot speak about you specifically.

You are doing a very good impression of SA cannon fodder circa 1927. For the historically minded, that is creepy.

jroberts548

I’m trying to figure out how a bunch of Honduran Catholics pose a threat analogous to the Saracens.

St. Joan of Arc wasn’t fighting English immigrants. She was fighting the English army. The English weren’t trying to immigrate to France, or destroy French culture; the “English,” in this case, were Angevins, Aquitanians, and Normans (i.e., other French) trying to conquer the French crown.

“I’m not at Stormfront because I am not a Nazi or white supremacist…I wouldn’t even really describe myself as a white nationalist.”

“Quack, quack,” said the duck.

“Did you know that you can be Catholic and also love your people and wish to preserve your culture?”

Did you know that racial minorities appreciate white culture, your your need to “preserve” is way overblown? Did you now African-Americans and Hispanics perform Shakespeare, that Asians and Jews perform Vivaldi, and an Indian scholar compiled and edited the works of H.P. Lovecraft? Did you know that if you were a serious connoisseur (French European word) of European culture you would know this?

“Now, I know that you and Shea and Pope Francis are not big on preserving European culture and the white folks who created it, but some of us are. Sorry to upset you.”

Really!? When do you plan on starting? You may have to learn a few things first. But please refrain from digging up the dead “white folks” that created it to preserve them. That is very upsetting.

I’m not going to respond to any more of your incoherent babbling, so I’ll let you get in the last word. I’m not worried about this. Based on your previous patterns, I’m sure you will continue to make yourself look like a silly prat (that’s a British European word meaning “ass”).

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

It always amazes me how unrealistic about race most self-proclaimed racial realists are. Yes, racial differences exist. Whites usually come in mid-pack. That should tell people something, but the realists never seem to get the message that the data is saying. That’s not very realistic.

At a certain point, we will be able to honestly and openly discuss racial differences found in the scientific literature. To the “racial realists” surprise, success will be found in all races despite the differences. To the mainstream’s surprise, there will be differences found. I just want the truth, no matter where it leads.

Antiphon411

I know this. I am not a white supremacist. I don’t care if whites come in at the bottom of the pack. I love my people and think European culture and the white race are worth preserving.

You don’t seem very well informed on the issue of the health of what you are pleased to call white culture. These cultures have been dead man walking since WW I. I don’t refer to specifics because I never know which list the other guy is working off of and under certain versions I’m white and certain ones I’m not. East Europeans shifted historically, you know.

Racial diversity is something that is a defining part of what you are pleased to call white culture because a common aspect of it seems to be a superior willingness to absorb others and the ability to survive the experience. Go read history and ask what happened to all those invading barbarians. Most racial realists aren’t very realistic about their own mutt pasts.

All that is to say you are worried about a nothingburger. Go read Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots for an actual problem on this subject you are so concerned about. I suggest prayer, and hope you seek out a very good Catholic priest for guidance.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

The Kwasman stuff at the end was the only part that was moderately justified. That was maybe a minute out of the eight. It doesn’t justify calling El Salvador “El Diablo” or putting up a picture of someone who has adopted a Guatamalan child and describing her attitude towards central american kids as “a soft kind of hate”.

The last we discussed, you were a lawyer about to take your bar exam. Perhaps you might have a little professional humility with respect to a physician who is a serving member of Congress writing the CDC. He’s also the head of the GOP Doctor’s Caucus.

I do not pretend to professional knowledge on this matter. For that I consult my wife who is an MD and whose only quibble is the disease mix that is of concern. But then again, Dr Gingrey is an OB/GYN and Dr. Lutas is an Internist. Policy wise, there’s probably little difference between the two.

Latent TB is testable in the US because most people in the US have not been vaccinated against the disease. Vaccinated people test the same as latent TB carriers. Let in enough people from countries that have to vaccinate against TB and we have a real health care issue on our hands.

At that point, I expect that Colbert and Stewart will revert to their “but I’m just a comedian” poses and try to avoid any blame to attach to their lucrative media brands.

jroberts548

If a doctor working at the border in his or her capacity as a doctor tells me (or the public) that immigrants have ebola, I’ll believe him or her. If a doctor from Georgia working in DC tells the CDC that Central American immigrants have ebola, even though there are no reports of immigrants with ebola, I’m going to assume he’s just engaging in posturing for his constituents.

The practical difficulties in testing for latent TB and vaccination present a real, pragmatic problem. The way to discuss that is the way you raised the issue. It is not by picking a random, different disease that will sound scary to your constituents, but has nothing to do with the legitimate public health concerns of dealing with immigration.

I note that he states that the CDC has activated its emergency operations center in response to the influx so at least that portion of the system is working. Unfortunately, the only people who seem to be paying attention to make sure it’s done right is infowars and company and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to depend on infowars for oversight. There should be media accounts in mainstream publications by now on the subject and there aren’t. That’s troubling.

jroberts548

I guess it’s possible Gingrey wrote an open letter to the CDC and just accidentally included a disease that’s unknown in humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa. I suppose it could be a pure, honest brain fart.

On the other hand, “pure,” “honest,” and “congress” don’t belong in the same sentence. When a member of congress who should know better lists ebola as a disease immigrants have, says there are reports of it, does so in an open letter, and raises concerns about the immigrants’ vaccination histories even though he opposes mandatory vaccinations, it looks to me like posturing for his base constituents.

Michaelus

Well we have not had any coherent immigration law for decades – so why are these kids doing this now? Anyone know anyone who has actually spoken with one of the immigrant kids? This should not be difficult to figure out at all.

Young CC Prof

Because there’s a lot of violence and civil unrest in their homes. They’re almost all coming from Honduras and Guatemala.

Their parents sent them off on an incredibly risky journey because they were afraid their children would be killed at home.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

They’ve been told that if they don’t have their parents with them, they won’t get deported and that they will be able to get legal status, eventually pulling the rest of their families to the US.

LFM

Here is what the always interesting Peter Hitchens has to say about mass immigration in his own country, and attempts to smear him as being hostile to immigrants, rather than opposed to such immigration as a policy:

“I am absolutely not blaming immigrants. The people who came here were perfectly reasonable to come here, they were encouraged to come here by governments. They came to better themselves. I don’t blame them in the slightest…. It is nothing to do with the immigrants it is to do with the politicians. They did it, they opened the borders and they made it happen and we’re going to have to find some accommodation with it, but I do not think they should escape the blame. I think when we realise that our country, much of our country is going to have to be concreted over because of this we should always remember who made that happen.” See http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/mass-immigration/

American politicians neglected to enforce immigration laws, tacitly opening the borders to serve their own interests. It is not wrong for American citizens (and *legal immigrants*) to be angry about this. If they are demonstrating their anger in objectionable or immoral ways, that is because they have been unable to get any effective action from the government. Nor is this a liberal or conservative issue, because *both* your political parties were guilty of it when in power.

Dave G.

Both parties? What are you, a partisan? Well said BTW.

Joe

I general identify as a traditional conservative, and my opinion is when you find a baby on your doorstep, you don’t kick it in the street. Colbert’s right.

LFM

Well, but a great many (most?) of the incomers are not babies, but older teenagers, and many are not actually unaccompanied, either, to judge by the vast number of photos available online.

And of course you wouldn’t kick the baby out into the street, but would you then adopt it, without consulting your wife or your children, while you were living on unemployment benefits, and had no spare rooms in your house, and were also struggling to support your elderly parents? Because that is analogous to the situation in which many American communities and/or citizens now find themselves.

Marthe Lépine

Maybe you would be surprised, but some people would do it. And life experience has shown me that it is not always the people with the most money who are open to help each other when in need.

LFM

It is not a question of who has the most money, but of what money, time or attention you are taking away from others who need it and who might have greater claims on you. And, as I said, your intimates have a right to be asked before being compelled to accept such a decision. Then, too, there is the fact that the person doing the adopting might not be good for the baby. Such decisions require careful examination of both the baby and the potential parent, or, to drop the metaphor, decisions about whom to allow into the country require careful thought about both the good of the would-be immigrant and the good of the would-be hosts.

Joe

Way to let an analogy go right over your head. Congrats on not letting your Catholicism subordinate your ideology. Seriously, this is stuff grade school children understand!

LFM

Begging your pardon, Sir, but what the HECK are you talking about? In what way has your analogy gone over my head? I’ve merely extended it to its logical conclusion – logical because this is exactly what those who attack the immigration skeptics as vile and un-Christian are asking their fellow Americans to do.

And no, I am not allowing my ‘ideology’ to override other principles. I am not an American and not a conservative ideologue in any way, shape or form. I support what you people call ‘socialized’ medicine and I support immigration, too, but only the legal variety.

Joe

What you did, sir or ma’am, is something similar to what statisticians call ‘extrapolation’. And as I learned in stats, extrapolation can be really stupid. Do all people who find babies on their doorstep automatically adopt them, or do they at least care for their material needs until something else can be done? So your extension of my analogy doesn’t even make sense. My analogy was a simple argument saying we should do the obviously humane and decent thing, which is very different than the Fox New goons were complaining about.

LFM

It’s ma’am, as a matter of fact. Yes, extrapolations can be really stupid, and this one might have been, but for certain realities that some commenters here ignore – and which you, too, in your suggestion of how to respond to the baby on the doorstep, also ignore – so let me extrapolate some more to show you what I mean: 1) The US government is accepting the baby (i.e. young, illegal immigrants) without having a room for him, a school, or a plan for his future. 2) The US government is considering’adopting’ the baby without consulting the other inhabitants of the household. 3) The government may well expect that the baby will simply be accepted by the household as one of their own, after a certain amount of time – after all, that is what it has done with the other ‘babies’ dropped on its doorstep. 4) It becomes widely known in your neighborhood that you accept babies that turn up on your doorstep, and more of them continue to arrive.

Joe

As Mark Shea says, “Documentation, please.” Please elaborate on and provide evidence for these “realities.” Otherwise, your ridiculous argument is one based on conjecture.

LFM

Why don’t you and Mark provide the documentation? You’re the ones who advocate ignoring your nation’s borders and laws, and encouraging others to do so.

Regarding documentation: the number of illegal immigrants in the US is about 11.2 million (Los Angeles Times as quoted by Wikipedia) with some estimates as high as 20 million (Christian Science Monitor as quoted by Wikipedia; note that neither of these is a ‘conservative’ publication). Leaving out any other avenues of argument, this fact suggests that at the very least, the US does not have a good track record of either keeping out illegal immigrants, or of monitoring them once they arrive. My argument is not ridiculous, but obvious common sense, given the huge numbers of newcomers that your nation has absorbed and which Obama’s thoughtless statements encourage. (I don’t think the man intended to provoke the present situation; he was playing to his usual DC audience, without grasping that others would hear and seize upon his words.)

Joe

“Why don’t you and Mark provide the documentation? You’re the ones who advocate ignoring your nation’s borders and laws, and encouraging others to do so.”

Please include a single quote where I advocated this. The only thing that I advocated in the original quote was that we as a nation (not you) show a little basic common decency to the misplaced children already here. I believe that’s what Colbert’s opinion is. You basically created a strawman.

“Regarding documentation: the number of illegal immigrants in the US is about 11.2 million (Los Angeles Times as quoted by Wikipedia) with some estimates as high as 20 million (Christian Science Monitor as quoted by Wikipedia; note that neither of these is a ‘conservative’ publication).”

And this is a concern for a non-American because …?

“Leaving out any other avenues of argument, this fact suggests that at the very least, the US does not have a good track record of either keeping out illegal immigrants, or of monitoring them once they arrive.”

Can’t argue this. But once again, you argue this as a non-American because …?

“My argument is not ridiculous, but obvious common sense, given the huge numbers of newcomers that your nation has absorbed and which Obama’s thoughtless statements encourage.”

You original argument as I stated above is a strawman. I do not advocate for illegal immigration. I, once again, only advocated for some basic Christian charity for the children who are here. So, if you are arguing against this, then your argument is NOT ridiculous. It is merely inhumane. As for Obama’s dumb statements, see below.

“(I don’t think the man intended to provoke the present situation; he was playing to his usual DC audience, without grasping that others would hear and seize upon his words.)”

I already know he is a disingenuous person. I don’t need to be reminded of this. I did not vote for the man.

LFM

Are you suggesting that I should not comment on the US’s immigration issues because I am not an American? Aside from the fact that this is a public forum and does not require US citizenship as a condition of participation, I would like to point out that the stability of the US is very important to the world, especially to near neighbors like Canada and Mexico, but internationally as well. As for my statement about your support for amnesty, I beg your pardon; I was conflating your views with those of Mark Shea, who has made a number of statements over the years in which support for amnesty was or appeared to be implicit.

I don’t disagree that the incoming migrants should be given food, shelter and clothing, which in fact most seem to be receiving. The fact that some hot-headed local residents in some communities are turning busloads of immigrants away results, as far as I can tell, from the fact that they were not consulted about the influx; that they fear they do not have the resources to support it; and that they have observed the government and its agents over many years tacitly encourage the inflow and fail to enforce the law. It is at such times that people tend to act upon their frustrations in ugly ways. Meanwhile, demonizing such people while failing to note that they might have some reason to be frustrated can only deepen social divisions in the US, which would not be good either for your nation or for the world. So my main reason to take part in this debate here has been to ask that Mark cool the rhetoric a little – not that I expect him to listen to me!

Joe

“Are you suggesting that I should not comment on the US’s immigration issues because I am not an American? Aside from the fact that this is a public forum and does not require US citizenship as a condition of participation, I would like to point out that the stability of the US is very important to the world, especially to near neighbors like Canada and Mexico, but internationally as well.”

I happen to think that US should draw back it’s involvement in things. I am not a neocon. I think the world should consider solving some of its own problems. I also don’t see how humanitarian aid to a bunch of desperate kids will “destabilize” the US. This is irrational and alarmist.

“As for my statement about your support for amnesty, I beg your pardon; I was conflating your views with those of Mark Shea, who has made a number of statements over the years in which support for amnesty was or appeared to be implicit.”

My apologies. If you’re going to create a straw man, would you have the charity to tell me about it sooner. I never said anything about amnesty. I am not Mark Shea, we do not necessarily share the same views about “amnesty.” So your conflations were needless.

“I don’t disagree that the incoming migrants should be given food, shelter and clothing, which in fact most seem to be receiving.”

Well that’s humane.

“The fact that some hot-headed local residents in some communities are turning busloads of immigrants away results, as far as I can tell, from the fact that they were not consulted about the influx; that they fear they do not have the resources to support it; and that they have observed the government and its agents over many years tacitly encourage the inflow and fail to enforce the law.”

They are inhuman, un-Christian jingoistic monsters showing no sense of decorum or perspective. Shouting at a bunch of scared kids hardly shows a mere concern for resources; it shows a complete disregard for humanity.

“and that they have observed the government and its agents over many years tacitly encourage the inflow and fail to enforce the law.”

How is this relevant to the needs of the kids? I can see this if they were Mexicans jumping the fences and flipping the bird at remote cameras, but these are kids. It shows an irrational sense of proportion.

“It is at such times that people tend to act upon their frustrations in ugly ways.”

Rednecks are like that.

“Meanwhile, demonizing such people while failing to note that they might have some reason to be frustrated can only deepen social divisions in the US, which would not be good either for your nation or for the world.”

Social divisions cannot get any deeper. We have gun-toting hillbilles forming militias and defending federal law violators. There are more civilized ways to air grievances.

“So my main reason to take part in this debate here has been to ask that Mark cool the rhetoric a little – not that I expect him to listen to me!”

He most likely won’t.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

You’re accepting a false premise. The appropriate solution is to stop the children at the first country that is relatively stable (in this case Mexico), put them in a refugee camp, sort the runaways and economic migrants from the legitimate refugees, and return the former and keep the latter, offering them a menu of stable countries to settle in. The US would be on the list but would probably have a long line so a lot of countries would end up taking some of the kids because their entry time would be shorter and the kids would be bored and sick of sitting in the camp doing nothing.

This is the system the world developed to handle E. European refugees in the time of the iron curtain. There is no reason that it could not be done again. Mexico probably needs a few bucks thrown its way to handle the economic burden but that would be a source of jobs in a pretty poor part of the country so they’re unlikely to protest.

Nobody asks conservatives whether they would be OK with the same refugee camp system that worked in Europe. I suspect that they would be fine with it. But nobody important is putting that out as a possibility.

Joe

So by demanding that we deal with the REALITY of the kids being in THIS country in a humane and Christian way, I’m accepting a false premise? Isn’t it a false premise assuming that the Mexicans would help with this even if “a few bucks were thrown their way”? And isn’t it a false premise that there would be a qualitative difference if we did what you proposed on our own soil as opposed to trying to get the Mexicans to do it on their soil?

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

Yes, you are accepting a false premise that action should be limited to when they show up on our doorstep. They do not appear here by magic. There’s a lot of ugliness between the migrants’ front doors and the US borders.

Just last week, after a migrant laden freight train derailed and a mexican province woke up with 1300 central americans on their hands, Mexico finally said that they would start enforcing train checks.

Unaccompanied minors are in danger once they leave home. They’re in danger inside their own countries and in every intervening country that they cross, including Mexico. Every mile north you place the camp is a mile that these kids are in danger. Most will make it. Some will be robbed, raped, crippled, or killed. Now you tell me what’s the good reason to set the camp at the northern terminus of the route, maximizing the danger and the en route carnage. Central America has some of the highest murder rates in the world. These are not safe migration routes.

The humane thing to do is set the camps at the southernmost point that is practical. What possible reason do you have to oppose this?

Joe

When did I express that I opposed this? Are we reading what we want to read? I merely stated skepticism that Mexico would play along with your hypothetical. And it is hypothetical. Perhaps you disregarded the two words I typed in caps? That there are kids in THIS country NOW. And that’s basically what the silly prats in the video are complaining about.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

You said “isn’t it a false premise that there would be a qualitative difference if we did what you proposed on our own soil as opposed to trying to get the Mexicans to do it on their soil?” which is what led me to the belief that you opposed it. If you didn’t, I have no idea what you were trying to say.

We had a pretty stable 4k-6k flow of unaccompanied minors, mostly below 18 teenage boys heading up north from south of Mexico. When it spiked in 2013 to a 30k flow, that was bad, stressing the system by 6x design capacity. Now we’re pushing 60k and likely to go higher in 2015. The “silly prats” are complaining that there’s nothing being done that realistically is going to restore the sustainable status quo ante levels of 4k-6k yearly flow.

The increased flow is coming because the kids were told we wouldn’t deport them. There really is only one humane cure that’s going to stop the 90k-120k flow coming in 2015-2016 and that is to deport a lot of them and make it an unpleasant experience so that they go back and tell their friends to not try.

Now I don’t want to be having this conversation next year with a number of counties fiscally breaking under the stress and declaring bankruptcy. That would not be a recipe for sober analysis and thoughtful solutions.

Things can go very bad with this issue. Having a blind spot as long as Mexico is no way to approach the problem.

Joe

“You said “isn’t it a false premise that there would be a qualitative difference if we did what you proposed on our own soil as opposed to trying to get the Mexicans to do it on their soil?” which is what led me to the belief that you opposed it. If you didn’t, I have no idea what you were trying to say.”

Perhaps you skipped the line about the children already in THIS country? Which was the point of my first post. So we’re going to ship the children in THIS country to refugee camps rather than handling them here? Even if you pipe dream of having the Mexicans handle any additional child refugees was actually workable (still very skeptical about the Mexican government being on board), why ship the children already here to a Mexican refugee camp? I’d rather spend the money here. If you paid attention to the entire post, rather than trying to pick it apart, you would’ve known that I was focusing on the kids already here, which is what my initial post focused on, if you understood the analogy I was making. Not complicated.

http://chicagoboyz.net/ TMLutas

No, we evaluate in place and deport to their home country when they don’t qualify for asylum. The impulse to overemphasize the kid in front of us in 2012 is how we got in this mess in 2014.

Looking beyond the present day is now being labeled vile, jingoistic, and hateful. That is the starting point that Mark Shea and Stephen Colbert put us at.

The kids here today are the victim of politicians in their home countries who see them as useless mouths, parents who are willing to bet their kids lives on the possibility of remittances and an eventual visa and cynical Mexican politicians working out their historical resentments of the US by letting the migrants pass through but not settle in Mexico.

No matter what you do, eventually any US only solution is going to fail in a wave of poor people that we aren’t rich enough to handle. The best time to fix this was in 2012. The next best time is today.